Fairer Than the Fairies
by Calendulam
Summary: When a beautiful child is born in the Kingdom and the King declares him "fairer than the fairies", the Fairy King is angered and seeks vengeance for the King's words. A Fairytale AU.


This ficlet was written for Klaine AU Fridays on tumblr. The prompt was fairytale!Klaine. It's based on a French fairytale 'Fairer-Than-A-Fairy - very loosely based. I'm the-water-nixie over there if anyone wants to come find me. :)

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It was the most beautiful, perfect child to have ever been born in the history of the kingdom. Fairer than the fairies, the King decreed on the child's birthing night, and again at the naming ceremony.

Mortlok, the King of the Fairies, was not only unappreciative of the human King's words, but took great offence to them. A child born of two humans could not hold a candle to a celestial being such as they. Mortlok decided on the night of the ceremony that he should like to study the child in person, to determine the degree of the man's folly, and then he should keep the child as a slave as payment for the man's slanderous lies.

He sent out a band of his best spies that very night after the full moon rose over the treetops.

Once the child had been captured and whisked away into the Kingdom of Fairy where the humans could never retrieve it, Mortlok looked upon its sweet features and found it to be most beautiful for a human. And so he altered the child's sentence and gave it into the care of the eldest of the fairies, Burton, who was recently widowed and lived alone on the very edge of their border with the human kingdoms.

Burton named the child Kurt, a name much like his own, and raised him as though he was his blood son. He did not tell the boy that he was of another race until his sixteenth birthday, and Kurt ran into the forest crying and would not listen to his adoptive father's pleas for patience and understanding.

As he circled a round stone building, rubbing angrily at his streaming eyes, Kurt heard a sound from within the crumbling structure. It was the most hauntingly lovely thing he had ever heard, even after all of his years in the company of the fey folk. He peered in through a barred window, not even large enough for a bird to swoop through, and he saw a boy. He was wearing torn, filthy garments, his head bowed low and arms wrapped around his knees. He was singing to himself and rocking slowly back and forth, as if to comfort. Kurt felt immediately bad for the boy, recognizing at once the flat tone of his skin and hair as like his own, without the otherworldly luminescence of that of the fairies. The boy was human as Kurt was human. Kurt wondered what sort of atrocities the boy could have possibly committed to have been locked up in such a terrible place. He watched and listened for several more moments before swallowing his pride and marching back through the trees to speak with his father.

His father told him that he must not talk to the boy, for the fairy guards had enchanted his cell and would know immediately if he uttered a single word. Kurt went back anyway, though his father entreated him not to. He sat day in and day out and listened to the boy's beautiful songs, sometimes dropping honeysuckle and sweet grass in through the bars of the tiny window.

The summer neared its end and the days grew ever shorter and Kurt had fallen in love with the boy, with his sweet eyes and his handsome face. He confessed this to his father one night in autumn, the leaves mustard, scarlet and vermillion. His father was sad but resolute, and he told Kurt that he had been keeping something else from him. The boy in the cell had been trying to infiltrate the Kingdom of Fairy in search of Kurt, and he was in fact a prince just as Kurt was, only from a neighbouring kingdom. Kurt was shocked and saddened and begged his father for help. His father began to plan, though he knew by aiding Kurt and the boy he would be forfeiting his own life. He was too old and his magic was not powerful, but he wanted nothing more than for his only son to be happy and safe, and if he had to let him go to award that happiness, then so be it.

They broke the boy out at the Witching Hour when the fairies were distracted, accepting their offerings from the humans who both feared and loved them. "It was you," the boy said, once freed from his prison. He clung to Kurt's side. "You were the one who came. You brought me hope and a sense of peace and made me want to sing again. The legends are true," the boy continued, regarding Kurt with barely concealed reverence. "You are the fairest – more fair than any creature I have ever beheld."

And when Burton saw the way the boy looked upon his son he felt at peace with his decision. He lied and told the boys he had used his magic to mask his assistance and that the fairy guards would not know of his involvement. He promised Kurt he would be fine over and over as he snuck them to the border of his land and that of their fathers.

Kurt cried when they reached the nearly imperceptible border, the shimmering spectre of the fairy magic hanging low like mist near the ground. The boy reached out to wipe away Kurt's tears with the torn sleeve of his own tunic, love shining brilliantly in his eyes. Kurt shared a long look with the boy before turning to his father and pulling him in for a goodbye embrace.

Kurt leaned back and kissed his father's cheek, reaching out blindly to clasp both of his hands. "I am sorry, Father," he said, and quickly bound Burton's hands with rope he had concealed before leaving their home for the final time. "But I cannot allow you to be killed on account of me. I know your magic is not strong enough to trick them; you couldn't even trick me."

"Kurt –" Burton attempted to argue.

"You will come with us. I love you and will not leave you here alone."

In the forest on the human side of the border, they happened upon an armed guard from the castle where Kurt was born and were taken into custody. As soon as the King and Queen set eyes upon their son, they knew immediately who he was. The boy, Prince Blaine of the neighbouring kingdom, was promised a royal feast and the King ordered his guards to take Burton away to the dungeons. Kurt cried and clung to his adoptive father, telling the parents that he had never known how the fairy had raised him, loved him and saved him. The King told the guards to stand down, unable to resist the impassioned pleas of his son. Burton was given a suite of rooms and a guard to keep away all possible retribution of the fairy folk.

The King and Queen asked Prince Blaine what he wished for as his reward, and he looked upon Kurt with longing. With Kurt's nod of permission, he asked for Kurt's hand in marriage and the King and Queen rejoiced, for they had been searching for a way to bring the kingdoms together for many a year.

After they were married they moved into the country, for Kurt had grown used to communing with nature and felt lonesome for rocks and flowers and trees. Blaine, who would give Kurt the world, agreed, and they built a small stone house for Burton nearby.

And so they lived happily ever after.


End file.
